I. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an apparatus for the slicing of food products, in particular ham, sausage, cheese and the like, having a product supply system and a cutting station as well as conveying means disposed downstream of the cutting station for the transporting away of the sliced products.
II. Description of the Prior Art
Apparatuses of this kind, which are also termed slicers, are known. Slicers are also already in practical use which have two product supply units which extend parallel to one another for the purpose of increasing the cutting performance such that two products can be sliced simultaneously with the cutting knife circulating in a planetary manner and driven in a rotating manner.
All currently known slicers have only one single cutter head and have intermittent or continuous supply feeds. Intermittent supply feeds are as a rule used for short products such as raw ham or a block of cheese, whereas the continuous supply feeds are used for long product strings such as sausage or boiled ham.
Intermittent supply feeds above all have the disadvantage of time loss and the interruption of the product flow caused by this resulting from the respective very high loading time in relation to the cutting time.
Continuous supply feeds have the disadvantage that the products are no longer sufficiently guided or held toward the end of the cutting process and losses thereby occur due to the transition region between the products. Moreover, it generally applies to slicers having only one cutter head that the maximum product width to be cut is restricted in dependence on the respectively used single cutter head.
Furthermore, it is disadvantageous in the known apparatuses of this kind that it is not possible, or is only possible with a very high technical conveying effort, to achieve a continuous product flow in connection with the successive slicing of the individual products such as is required for packaging machines operating without interruption.